The late Catherine O’Hara was not a fan of Donald Trump—or the way he talked about her home country, Canada.
The legendary Home Alone and Schitt’s Creek star died on Friday at the age of 71. But just last year, she was slamming her Home Alone 2: Lost in New York co-star Trump over his disparaging remarks about Canada.
When asked for her thoughts on Trump’s comment that he’d like to make Canada the United States’s “51st state,” O’Hara said she didn’t want to “dignify” the comment with a response, though she ultimately couldn’t help herself.
The actress told The Wrap’s Unwrapped podcast in May, “The only good thing out of this is it’s unifying Canadians and building a little nationalism that they deserve… that we deserve. It makes me just really want to be in Ontario, Canada right now.”
O’Hara moved to Los Angeles from Canada in the early 1990s after working on the cult classic film Beetlejuice, where she met her future husband of over 33 years, production designer Bo Welch.
Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time, “I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State. They are considering the offer!”
“It makes my skin crawl every time I hear anything about it,” O’Hara said in her response, after she seemed to struggle for a non-profanity-laden follow-up to Trump’s “particular threat.”
She added, “God bless Canada. God bless Canadians.”
O’Hara was rushed to the hospital “in serious condition” around 5 a.m. on Friday before she died, reports TMZ. The site published a clip of dispatch audio revealing that the star was having trouble breathing at her Brentwood home. A cause of death has not been revealed, though her representatives said she had suffered from a “brief illness.”
Tributes have already begun pouring in, with O’Hara’s on-screen Home Alone son, Macaulay Culkin, writing on Instagram, “Mama. I thought we had time…I had so much more to say. I love you. I’ll see you later.”
